Surviving Survivor

I shan't lie.

I am competitive in real life. This spills into most things I take part, whether they are work or leisure based. It's just who I am.

And that's just fine.

Literotica certainly brought out some of the competitive side. From the very first published work and the pure amazement of seeing all those views rack up within a very short period of time, I was hooked. The first one was in T&I so a large audience awaited fresh material but even so, to see a story rise on the charts so quickly and so far for a first story was incredible. I am not sure where I would have received such exposure for my writing so quickly.

It spurred me on. I have a wide range of interests, sexually speaking, so some of the other categories also drew me in. I made some mistakes to start off (misplaced names and some slack edits) but got into the swing of things. Despite an early self requested account deletion along with requested story removal, I bounced back, turned off anonymous comments (feel free to look up the forum threads for more thoughts there), and focused on the writing.

Then I saw it.

The Survivor contest.

Once I read through the various rules and concepts, I figured I would have a crack at it despite being half way through the year. I did reasonably well for the time I had to write.

Basically you write as widely and as deeply as you can over the course of a year in most of the Literotica categories. Each year has been slightly different in rules and expectations but each author challenges themselves to write in as many categories as possible regardless of interests or proclivities. Many will find certain categories difficult and won't write those kids of stories. For me, despite a lack of interest in some, I saw it as a way to expand my own skills. While many may argue this, I think it has increased my abilities to see and express other ideas.

Being a points based system with a scorecard, it allows you to see how to maximize points. For example a new category's story will be worth three points but you might also enter it in one of the contests for another five points making that story worth eight points to your overall total. For August, I have a Music Challenge story contest entry that will also be the first chapter of my novel that will yield eleven points, five for the contest, six for the novel beginning. The AI one was similar and entered into story and contest.

To date, I have a few categories left to submit to before the end of the contest in December. I tried to write the hardest categories for me first to get them out of the way. It worked well for me but might not agree with the way others write. I had a mindset of a focus on Survivor for this year and so far, other than some extra T&I stories for the feel goods of views and comments I enjoy, I have been able to focus on most things Survivor.

It's highly unlikely I will score highly in the Survivor contest as I have set my goal to simply write across all the categories and not gamify the process with the star system. This year, based on the date you start and the stories you enter, you earn stars to allow you to maximize points, skip categories you don't like, and increase your points totals. It's not something I will take part in for the contest so it will hurt me in the end. I am fine with this as my competition is with myself to complete the stories. I think this will be done by early fall but we shall see.

As my second crack at Survivor, I think it will be my last. I started last year in the summer so had six months to write but started this year in January ready to post. It was certainly helpful and, as long as I have time to write, I see no issues with completion. I have enjoyed the challenge of exploring various categories any a number of my stories have pointed to possible new categories to fully explore in future works but I can't see doing this again.

What I have found out along the way became almost as interesting as the writing itself. I certainly want to thank all of the people that go out of their way to vote for my stories and leave comments. It increases the pleasure of writing incalculably and I look forward to the stories that gain the most comments. Whether positive or negative, they certainly guide some of my ideas and the way I do things.

On the other hand, I wouldn't have thought there would be voting cabals in some of the categories that exclude certain writing styles and ideas that don't fit the mold. I also wouldn't have thought there would be people deliberately 'one bombing' other writers to the point where filters have to be applied to reduce the impact on scoring, especially for the contests with monetary prizes. I'm not sure why I hadn't thought that but I seem to find out something new each day. There seem to be a number of petty folks that simply target authors they don't like as well. The decent folks far outweigh the meatballs though. By far.

I was also on 'Team Change the Rating Scale' from 1-5 but after doing some research on it, I'm fine with the way it is. Perhaps a 1-7 or 1-9 would be better but I now, honestly, think that it wouldn't make much of a difference. And really, other than focused vote downs (or vote ups), I don't really care. I am well established enough to have created some wonderful followers (thanks to all that added me to your lists!) and enjoy what I do so now I do it mostly for them (and that huge dopamine hit when a story does well right off the hop... oh, yeah, give it to me, baby!).

So, would I suggest writing for Survivor? Maybe. Consider whether you have the volume of writing, an ability to write on topics that you might not fully enjoy, and the determination to sit regularly to type things out. Finding the time can be most challenging to me but I have carved out sometime in the mornings regularly rather than doom scrolling. The need to write over multiple categories has kept the ideas flowing, and I can certainly crank out the ideas when necessary.

If you focus on just hitting the categories, I think completing Survivor is quite doable with a bit of planning. If you want a slight edge, preplan which contests you will enter with each story category as well for many more points. This will also give you a schedule to follow, ie. Holiday Contest and Romance for the category, for example. This can be especially important for the categories that you find tougher to write as it will spur you to actually write for them.

So, a year and a half of competitive writing in a thousand or so words. Have a crack at it and, if not your thing, pick one of the authors and track their progress.